The First Legendary Demonic Scholar

Chapter 107: Chapter 107: The New Missions

The mist dispersed from around Shen Yuan’s features like smoke caught in a passing breeze, his borrowed face melting away until his own sharp, silver-eyed reflection settled back into place. He exhaled slowly, feeling the faint strain of the technique fade from behind his eyes.

Lin Xia.

The name sat heavy in his mind, but heavy didn’t mean answered. He knew the shape of the crime now, or at least the hand that carved it—but the reason behind it remained frustratingly out of reach. Why kill a servant so brazenly, then leave the body arranged like some twisted piece of theater? Why did Bang Fo react with such utter indifference, as if a corpse in his estate was as mundane as spilled ink?

And what exactly is the "hidden secret" the system thinks I need to uncover?

Too many threads, none of them long enough yet to pull.

Shen Yuan let the questions settle into the back of his mind, filed away alongside everything else he’d catalogued since arriving at this estate. Answers would come. They always did, eventually, if he was patient enough to wait for the right thread to reveal itself.

But patience doesn’t mean wasted time.

He glanced instinctively toward the corner of his vision, where the familiar translucent mission panel flickered quietly into view.

────────────────── [Available Missions:]

Sword Training I: Perform 1,000 proper sword strikes. Reward: 10,000 Qi Strands. Sword Training II: Perform 10,000 proper sword strikes. Reward: 50,000 Qi Strands. Cultivation Circulation: Circulate your cultivation technique 1,000 times. Reward: [Locked] ──────────────────

Shen Yuan’s eyes lingered on the first one. Ten thousand Qi Strands, just for repetition—mechanical, mindless, exactly the kind of task his body could handle while his mind wandered elsewhere.

Good. I have time before the surveillance technique returns.

He rose from his cot, moving quietly to the small patch of overgrown grass behind his shed, hidden just enough from the main courtyard to avoid prying eyes. His sword remained locked away with Bang Fo’s other confiscated items—new servants weren’t permitted weapons until trust had been earned, a rule Shen Yuan found almost laughably naive given everything already hidden in his inventory.

Instead, he crouched beside a half-fallen tree at the edge of the property, snapping off a sturdy branch roughly the length of his blade. He turned it over once in his palm, testing its weight, before settling into a low stance.

Not perfect. But it’ll do.

He began to swing.

Each strike followed the exact forms of the Formless Sword Art—unpredictable in pattern, yet precise in execution, his feet shifting in careful accordance with every motion. The system, he knew from experience, wasn’t interested in mindless flailing. It tracked proper technique, correct footwork, the disciplined synchronization between blade and body that separated a real cultivator’s strike from an untrained swing.

One. Two. Three.

The branch cut through the night air in smooth, silent arcs, Shen Yuan’s silver eyes distant with the same mechanical focus he brought to everything else. His body already knew these movements intimately—weeks of practice in the forest behind his old dormitory had carved the Formless Sword Art into muscle memory, and now it was simply a matter of repetition, of grinding away at a task that required more discipline than difficulty.

Two hundred. Four hundred. Six hundred.

Sweat began to bead along his temple, his breathing settling into the same steady rhythm he’d cultivated during his sword training in the forest. Time blurred slightly as he lost himself in the monotony of it, each swing a near-perfect echo of the last, yet subtly different, exactly as the technique demanded.

Eight hundred. Nine hundred.

The final strike landed with a soft, decisive whoosh of displaced air.

〈Ding!〉

────────────────── [Mission Complete: Sword Training I] [Reward: 10,000 Qi Strands Awarded.] [Breakthrough Available: Seventh Stage Qi Gathering Realm.] ──────────────────

Shen Yuan allowed himself a small, satisfied breath, tossing the makeshift branch aside as he accepted the breakthrough prompt without hesitation. A familiar warmth surged through his meridians, his qi expanding and settling into its new, slightly deeper foundation with practiced ease.

Seventh Stage. Progress, quiet and steady, exactly the way he preferred it.

He checked the time instinctively, gauging how long remained before the estate’s surveillance technique would reassert itself. Enough, he judged, for at least a glance at the next mission—though not nearly enough to attempt it.

[Sword Training II: Perform 10,000 proper sword strikes. Reward: 50,000 Qi Strands.]

Shen Yuan huffed out something close to a laugh, shaking his head slightly. Ten thousand strikes wasn’t a task he could knock out in a single stolen hour between surveillance cycles. Even at his current pace, that would take days of consistent, uninterrupted practice—time he simply didn’t have while playing the role of an overworked, unremarkable servant.

Unless...

A thought flickered at the edge of his mind—breaking the task into smaller pieces, chipping away at it during every spare moment the estate’s surveillance blind spots allowed him. A few hundred strikes here, a few hundred there, until the number quietly accumulated into something substantial.

He almost let the idea take root.

Then, just as quickly, he set it aside. Not yet. Not while there were still unanswered questions clawing at the edges of his patience—Lin Xia’s true motive, the burned corpse, the strange hollow sensation that had settled over him the moment he’d first walked through Bang Fo’s estate gates. Grinding out ten thousand sword strikes over the coming days could wait.

He moved to the next mission instead, and something in his expression shifted the moment he read it.

[Cultivation Circulation: Circulate your cultivation technique 1,000 times. Reward: 5000 Qi Strands and Insight In The Divine Star Cultivation Manual.]

Shen Yuan’s lips curved into the faintest hint of a smile.

Now that, he thought, settling cross-legged onto the ground and closing his eyes, I actually have time for.

Unlike sword training, circulating his cultivation technique required no wide, open space, no risk of being spotted mid-motion by a wandering servant or an unexpected patrol. It could be done anywhere, anytime, hidden behind the simple, unremarkable act of meditation—something every servant in this estate was expected to do regardless of how suspicious anyone might otherwise find him.

He drew in a slow breath, guiding his qi through the meridian pathways of his cultivation technique, feeling the familiar warmth circulate from his dantian outward, then back again, completing the first cycle.

One.

The rhythm settled quickly into something almost meditative, each cycle folding into the next with practiced ease, his silver eyes closed, his expression calm and unreadable in the dim light of his small shed.